Nothing Can Prepare You
by Zarius
Summary: An AU story asking what if Crumhorn had been present on Earth when the climax of "Melted" had occurred?


**DANGER MOUSE:**

 **NOTHING CAN PREPARE YOU**

 **WRITTEN BY ZARIUS**

 **(Contains spoilers for "Melted")**

* * *

 **Author's note: Yeah, I realised half-way through writing this that Crumhorn is currently off-world, so just think of this as an alternate universe or assume "Melted" takes place sometime before the second season finale. Thanks**

 **-Zarius**

* * *

The lawyers hadn't seen him in hours.

They paced up and down the waiting room situated at the base of his company headquarters, but all Augustus P. Crumhorn would do was keep them waiting.

He could ill afford an interruption.

He remained seated in his office, watching the footage on the news again and again.

His sharpened eyes fixated on the closing moments of the duet that decided the fate of the world.

On the frozen tundra of the North Pole, under the northern lights, he saw two people come together in a session of absolute bliss. For these two, there was no one else in the world, they were everything either needed.

A device in both of their hands was triggered, and the machine that had turned up the heat in every corner of the globe reset and returned the world to normal.

This planet had been denied a Crumhorn-led reshaping once more, courtesy of the world's greatest secret agent, and the family's sworn nemesis.

And Augustus' daughter had also proved far too trusting of the mouse that'd captivated her heart.

When he gave her that smug smirk that conveyed to her all too easily she was in a world of trouble, she ran, she ran as far as she could because the monster was here.

What a good girl.

She tripped and fell into the water, emerging as a prisoner in a solid block of ice.

She was a prisoner of the mouse, but perhaps so much emotionally wrenching, was she was now a prisoner of his heart.

Crumhorn swung his chair around and brought it back around to his desk. He pulled out a drawer with a large black unmarked photo album and combed through its pages.

He had specifically categorised each advancing step in his daughter's journey through life. A series of firsts.

First birthday, first footsteps, first toy, first day at school.

The photos brought a stir to his soul as the sensation of fatherly pride overtook him looking at the photos of a boundless, excited and curious girl with spark and energy graced every photo on the page.

And then his eyes glanced over to the categories that remained blank, the slots he was saving for when she was older.

First kiss, first love, first born.

And his anger grew the more he thought of them.

The innocence of those days were gone, the days of looking forward to those moments had been lost, for the world was cracked and both of them were hell bent on gluing everything and everyone they'd seen together again, all they could make time for was law, and order, and discipline, and judgements.

All of these adult matters forging a child's future, defining her mission and mindset way before it was meant to. Crumhorn would have to sit his daughter down and try to reassure her all of this needn't affect her, that it was the people that were cracked, neither her nor himself.

That was an altogether easier task.

But what the mouse had done was to prove an almost impossible challenge, for this was a matter of the heart, this was forbidden, this was an alien language to him. As a considerate parent, nothing can prepare you for a conversation like this.

And that _terrified_ him.

The lawyers would stay outside for now. Bringing them in would only lead to them offering their strategies, their advise, their spin, and then they would be put to use, they would fight in his corner, they would spring his daughter, they would make his family whole again.

And then they would have the conversation, he would put her to bed, and she would dream.

Dream of the Mouse, dream of their moment, and dream of her nightmare, and that day, the day she experienced what true love can give and what betrayal can take away, would spark a downward spiral and a session of further conversations which Crumhorn would find a struggle.

How can you mend the world when your own is just as cracked?

How could you make a product of pure love believe that such a thing can ever still exist in this cruel world?

He didn't know how to answer, these were the harder questions, the most dangerous currents you face in the ocean of life.

And _nothing_ can prepare you.


End file.
